George Grosz: Postcard of an Artist Colony

Today illustrator Stephen Kroninger shares a postcard sent by George Grosz, then summering in Cape Cod, to his friend, the art critic Thomas Craven. The postcard, written and postmarked in Truro on June 29, 1939, depicts an "artist colony on the Cape." Grosz has amended the picture with "Lots of painters and paint around here." And, apparently, sunhats.

            "29.6.39
Dear Tom & Eileen [Aileen],                        
Greetings to you from the very lovely Truro
            as ever yours
George & Eva Grosz"

Craven was a champion of the American Regionalist painters and the editor of Cartoon Cavalcade (1943).

Thomas Craven, ed.
Cartoon Cavalcade, 1943

Later in 1939, Grosz's portrait of Craven would appear on the cover of The Saturday Review of Literature.

George Grosz
Portrait of Thomas Craven
The Saturday Review of Literature
September 30, 1939

https://www.ebay.com/itm/312752735536?hash=item48d1840530:g:sQUAAOxyW1NRESuu

Grosz didn't require an artist colony in order to paint on the Cape:

George Grosz
Dunes of Cape Cod, 1939

http://www.artnet.com/artists/george-grosz/dunes-of-cape-cod-Lde0Z_jIzOuDBunEx7_67g2

Note:  Over years now of my posting many top notch contributions from him, I never suspected that master collagist Stephen Kroninger also collected postcards. This is his thirty-eighth contribution to Attempted Bloggery and his very first postcard. Thank you, Stephen.

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The Art of the Redraw: Sunflower Slow Drag by Whitney Darrow, Jr.

"And now for an encore, Scott Joplin's 'Sunflower Slow Drag'."
Whitney Darrow, Jr.
Redraw
The New Yorker, September 30, 1974, page 29
Published as "And now, for an encore, Scott Joplin's 'Sunflower Slow Drag.'"

Longtime contributor David from Manhattan writes with an interesting observation about an original cartoon by Whitney Darrow, Jr., currently listed on eBay:

Up on eBay is a nice Whitney Darrow cartoon: "And now for an encore, Scott Joplin's 'Sunflower Slow Drag'" with an inscription and tiny drawing. The cartoon was published [in The New Yorker of] Sept. 30, '74, but I was surprised to discover that the published version simply isn't as well drawn as the eBay offering. I can't believe Darrow thought the "final" version was his best effort. Is it possible he redrew the whole thing in '79, the date of the inscription? As you know, Darrow was pretty generous with his drawings in books, so I don't think it's completely absurd he would have gone to that trouble, especially if it was someone he knew. Anyway, I put that out there. The seller doesn't know the publication date.

Surely one could dedicate an entire blog to the things eBay sellers don't know. One would think a seller who could tell you that "Sunflower Slow Drag" was published in 1901 could just as easily google the full caption. But perhaps that's asking too much.

Darrow was indeed generous with his souvenir drawings. Even so, this redraw of a New Yorker cartoon in honor of the recipient Robin's birthday is awfully nice. Let's have another look.

Detail

Detail

Detail

Signature of Whitney Darrow, Jr.

Darrow must have deliberately omitted the comma after now, as published in the New Yorker. This improves the flow of the caption.

Caption

Inscription with drawing

The minuscule drawing is similar to the drawing by Darrow on the Nicholls Gallery poster seen in yesterday's post:

Drawing

Darrow's details remain remarkably clean and crisp:

Whitney Darrow, Jr.
eBay Listing Accessed June 30, 2020

https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-New-Yorker-Magazine-Cartoonist-Artist-Whitney-Darrow-Original-Art-Signed/124207575874?hash=item1ceb593342:g:vKoAAOSw7Rde1BRN

Whitney Darrow, Jr.
eBay Item Description

[End of eBay Listing]

So now let's compare the published New Yorker cartoon with this redraw found on eBay. Which do you prefer?

"And now for an encore, Scott Joplin's 'Sunflower Slow Drag'."
Whitney Darrow, Jr.
Redraw
The New Yorker, September 30, 1974, page 29
Published as "And now, for an encore, Scott Joplin's 'Sunflower Slow Drag.'"

Spot drawing by Henry Martin and cartoon by Whitney Darrow, Jr.

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1974-09-30/flipbook/028/

What should we make of this? Actually, it's not at all unheard of for an artist's redraw of a New Yorker cartoon to be more pleasing than the original. Why should that be? For one thing, the published version might have been drawn hastily under pressure of a deadline or the onus of certain editorial demands. Redraws, on the other hand, may be done at leisure for collectors who missed out on the original or for friends. The artist has the opportunity to rethink the work without concerns for the needs of the printer or the editors; the sole purpose is to please the recipient. A redraw which is better-drawn than the original is a worthy consolation prize for the recipient who cannot have the published original. It might also give the artist a chance to prove that he can produce better work without the demands of his editors.

Sunflower Slow Drag (1901)

by Scott Joplin and Scott Hayden

Piano Roll

At the time of posting, the Darrow redraw remains available on eBay.

December 18, 2021 Update:  Sold!

Note:  This is a topic which I'm hoping to elaborate on in a few posts with the heading The Art of the Redraw. Readers are invited to submit examples of redrawn cartoons that can be said to outdo in some way the published originals.

I've visited this topic before, as it turns out. Follow the aqua links for examples by Frank Modell, Liza Donnelly, and E. H. Shepard. Modell upped his drawing game while Donnelly and Shepard added vibrant color to their redraws.

My gratitude to David from Manhattan for bringing this eBay auction to my attention and doing all the research. This is his thirty-eighth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.

Spot drawing
Henry Martin

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Whitney Darrow, Jr.

Henry Martin (1925-2020)

Pianos

Redraws

Attempted Bloggery's Mushrooming Index

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Barbara Shermund: Diving for Greenbacks?

In decades past, it was a common practice for well-off cruise ship passengers to toss coins overboard at natives who would dive for them. This was a popular practice in the West Indies and elsewhere in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly with silver coins. The passengers found it entertaining and the divers, mostly boys or young men, found it financially rewarding. Such diving for coins is depicted on the cover of the old Life magazine for April 1936. Barbara Shermund's society matron has neglected to carry the requisite small change.

Barbara Shermund
Life, April 1936

Scan by Dick Buchanan

With this cover, Ms. Shermund brings the sensibility of her New Yorker work to Life magazine. It therefore seems fair to ask why this work didn't appear instead on the cover of the New Yorker where perhaps it might have been a more natural fit. One reason could be its similarity to the work of Helen E. Hokinson, who painted a series of New Yorker covers depicting her own society matron on a world tour.

Helen E. Hokinson
The New Yorker, March 7, 1931

Life magazine was to cease publication in November of 1936 and be replaced by Henry Luce's new magazine of the same name. Interestingly, though, within a year of the appearance of Shermund's Life cover, the New Yorker did publish a cover depicting natives diving for coins. It is by Roger Duvoisin.

Roger Duvoisin
The New Yorker, February 6, 1937

Note:  Once again I give my sincere thanks to Dick Buchanan, who now makes his thirty-eighth contribution to this blog with his scan of Barbara Shermund's splendid Life magazine cover. Dick's archive is known throughout the land as the Dick Buchanan Cartoon Clip Files. He contributes regularly to Mike Lynch Cartoons, most recently a festive post entitled "From the Dick Buchanan Files: Winter and Holiday Gag Cartoons 1939 - 1955." I highly recommend it. Heck, it's enough to make me want to learn how to turn on my scanner.

Does this sort of coin diving still occur anywhere today? Was it done in by World War II? By inflation? By clad coinage? Elie Wiesel criticizes the practice in Night (1956) on moral grounds.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Barbara Shermund

Helen E. Hokinson

Roger Duvoisin

Dick Buchanan

Life Magazine

Christmas

Attempted Bloggery's Non-Denominational Index

  
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